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A rare colour photograph shows local women making provisions for Battle of the Bogside, August 1969. (Gilles Carron)

The Free Derry story

The civil rights movement in Ireland has its deepest roots in Derry. It was here on 5 October 1968 that the issue of civil rights in the north first came to the attention of the world when the police attacked a peaceful demonstration in Duke Street. It was here that the first no go area was declared in January 1969, when the defiant slogan ‘You Are Now Entering Free Derry’ appeared on a gable wall in the Bogside.

It was here on 30 January 1972, Bloody Sunday, that 14 unarmed demonstrators were killed and 17 others injured by the British Army in the streets around this building.

By boldly taking on the might of the state, an oppressed people were demanding a different world where justice, equality and freedom were the entitlement of all. In this museum and archive rests part of their legacy. Their epitaph is the continuing struggle for democracy. This museum is dedicated to all who have struggled and suffered for civil rights everywhere, and who will do so in the future.

After partition, the Unionist Party set about creating “a Protestant state for a Protestant people” – built on a “foundation of sectarian discrimination, biased administration and a barrage of totalitarian legislation, which both protected unionism and instilled a deep sense of social injustice in the non-unionist population.” (Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, 1978.)

In early January 1969, as police attacked the Bogside, the slogan ‘You Are Now Entering Free Derry’ was first written on the gable wall. It was inspired by the sit-in protests in Berkeley University, California.

On 12 August, thousands of Apprentice Boys prepared to march through a Derry seething with anxiety and discontent. As the march passed the Bogside, it was greeted by jeering and stone throwing. The police, backed by loyalists, tried to force the protesters back.

Disagreement on how to relate to a dramatically changed situation had led to the Republican Movement splitting in December 1969 into the ‘Officials’ (OIRA) and ‘Provisionals’ (PIRA). Both groups were making ready for an armed campaign.

As violence spiralled, the British Government, pressed by unionist leaders at Stormont, introduced internment (imprisonment without trial) in August 1971. The measure had been used against republicans in every decade since the foundation of the state.

Bloody Sunday failed in its objective to terrorise the no-go area. Stormont fell in March and direct-rule from London was re-instated. Free Derry remained. Support for republicanism grew. The conflict continued to escalate. In six months after 30 January, 15 people were killed in the Free Derry area.

Free Derry as a physical entity ended with Operation Motorman, and this area suffered inordinately in the decades of armed conflict that followed. The death and injury rate here throughout the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s was high as the PIRA and the British Army fought a long war of attrition.

The struggle for justice for the victims of Bloody Sunday continued throughout the years of conflict and beyond. An annual commemoration march was held every year from 1973, retracing the steps of the original marchers.

About the Museum of Free Derry

The Museum of Free Derry tells the story of how a largely working class community rose up against the years of oppression it had endured. The museum and archive has become an integral part of Ireland’s radical and civil rights heritage.

The museum also tells the story of Bloody Sunday, the day when the British Army committed mass murder on the streets of the Bogside. It tells the story of how the people of Derry, led by the families of the victims, overcame the injustice and wrote a new chapter in the history of civil rights, which has become a source of international inspiration.

The museum is a public space where the concept of Free Derry can be explored in both historic and contemporary contexts. Free Derry is about our future together as much as it is about the past. The struggle of Free Derry is part of a wider struggle in Ireland and internationally for freedom and equality for all.